July

The arrest of famed historian Henry Louis Gates by the Cambridge, Massachusetts police raises some important questions about what this country has been losing in terms of civil liberties and due process.

On July 6, Neil deGrasse Tyson, head of the Hayden Planetarium, Twittered, “Wondering how many who watched fireworks on July 4 did so because it's fun, forgetting that it commemorates exploding bombs during warfare.”
That same day, Robert S. McNamara, the former defense secretary, died at 93. He was second only to President Lyndon Baines Johnson as the most hated figure of the Vietnam War era.